Glen1980 Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Sorry to the Mods if this is in the wrong place! Currently when we issue a job to the senior management to comment on, we have to print out eighteen sets of drawings so they each get a set (due to time constraints they can't share) and on average we probably have 250 A1, A2 and A3 drawings. This is a lot of wasted paper and money. What programmes do people here use in their jobs to send drawings out for comments? Only in house people look at the drawings, who would all be either in the office or have external access to the servers. Currently we PDF our drawings (2D mainly produced on LT) then print paper copies from the PDFs. The surveying boys and girls then print out more sets from these PDFs for tender drawings. This means that we wouldn't be limited to a DWG based programme as we would have to retain the PDFs for other teams to use. Ideally we would like to mark the electronic drawings up with their comment so we know where the comment is refering to. Then collate all the comments into a database or a list for. It would help if more than one person could mark up at a time. Then we all have a fun little meeting where each comment after interminable comment is discussed ad naseum, so it would be nice to display the drawings with the comments on a big screen where the comment and the area of the comment can be identified to everyone. Am I getting into the Realms of fantasy with these wishes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Any CAD viewing program that allows markups will do. We use CADwizz. DWG TrueView should work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANIEL Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 we e-mail pdf's and make them print them out for mark ups themselves, in office we plot out one set that gets passed around for everyone to make there comments in one place, that way any conflicts between engineers get worked out before it gets to the drafter and he doesnt have to descide on which engineer to listen too ..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Autodesk Design Review. It is by far the best review and commenting program for AutoCAD files, utilizing the DWFx filetype. The "commenting" tools are great, plus they can be tracked easily. You can place them as Reviewed, or even check them off as Approved, with responses, etc. Might want to check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glen1980 Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Thanks for the responses. I'll look at design review now as I have it installed. I never thought of it as anything more than a viewer before. In fact I only have it a someone kept sending me dwfs. The only problem I can see is I don't think our Xerox batch printing software works with dwf's which may mean producing pdfs as well. Does anyone know of any DWG bath plotting programmes? We have a few people here whose sole job it is, is to print and collate drawings to be sent out to contractors for tendering. They have very little computer knowledge so something simple so we use Xerox's AccXES that works with pdf's and tif's. Daniel, our process is much more commitee orientated. The chairman or construction director chairs the preliminary meeting and decides whether to agree or ignore a comment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 No need for 3rd party batch plotting programs. AutoCAD can handle this easily with the PUBLISH command, and Design Review has its options as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glen1980 Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Do you have to load the drawings individually on design review? The Xerox programme you select the files from the server then it prints them, without loading them onto the screen. It is way faster than loading and printing from the CAD files and as I mentioned before, printing is basicaly all they do. They are sending out hundreds of drawings each from perhaps twenty projects so complicating the printing process wouldn't be an option. It took the IT manager and I two years of telling them pdfs were betting than TIF files before they let me try using pdf's. Now it is PDF all the way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 DWF/DWFx files are not meant to have a single file as one sheet. They are meant to have all sheets contained in one DWF/DWFx file. It defeats the purpose if you make them separate files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glen1980 Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 This needs some serious consideration, too much change scares people. But I believe we need to change, I'd hate to think how much we spend on printing, plus we must use a fair sized forest every year. Do you keep your entire projects in one file or do you seperate them into similar drawings? If I only had to reissue one drawing is is possible to substitute sheets to save me re printing everything? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 The change should be welcoming once they notice how efficient and easy it is. 1. It's impossible to keep an entire project in one file in my line of work. The jobs are too big, and we have multiple users that design in the same job. 2. You can re-assemble DWF files with ease. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glen1980 Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 Thanks for the help Tannar, I'm going to have a play with design review and see how we can use it in our commenting process. Might have to come back with further silly questions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Organic Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 I still think pen/paper is the best personally. Checking/reviewing plan sets is far easier if I have a physical copy in front of me rather than viewing it as a pdf or CAD file on the screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobDraw Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 I still think pen/paper is the best personally. Checking/reviewing plan sets is far easier if I have a physical copy in front of me rather than viewing it as a pdf or CAD file on the screen. That's fine for one sheet but Glen (OP) has 18 copies of each sheet of large drawing sets. That's quite the QE review you got there. There is a lot of room for savings there not only in comsumables but in time managing all those sets for distribution and then gathering it all back together for input. Good luck in getting whatever you come up with implemented. Resistance to change can be a tough nut to crack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 I still think pen/paper is the best personally. Checking/reviewing plan sets is far easier if I have a physical copy in front of me rather than viewing it as a pdf or CAD file on the screen.I agree that red ink and paper is still the absolute best, but as Rob says, it's an alternative for an excessive amount of plans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Does everyone absolutely need their own personal copy? Can two people share a single copy and make their comments in different colored ink? Do you need to print these as "full" size? Could they be scaled to fit a smaller sheet size thus saving paper? Are some of the people comfortable enough with marking up an electronic version that they would gladly forego having more paper on their desk? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glen1980 Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 ReMark is corret, not everyone requires all the drawings. Sales for example don't look at the structural drawings, but to give everyone personalized sets would take longer to collate and be wide open to errors. Some of them do share copies but they only get a week to comment so someone wouldn't get the weekend to look at the drawings. I wouldn't have a problem sizing down the drawings but then we'd have to provide them with magnifying glasses!! Some of them complain about the size of the text as it is (I have to put up with a lot of complaining ) Some of them might go for the electronic copies. I don't know if it is possible for them to mark up the same file simultaneously or whether myself or someone else from my team will have to amalgamate them onto a single drawing for the meeting. The other problem is how to summarise all of the comments into sheets of A4 (Text only) so we don't miss any comments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 I would go the DWF route for electronic mark-up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jweigle Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 We use Sharepoint for our drawing review. Instead of paper copies, we have it filed electronically via tif or pdf files. Once we have a submission ready for comment(bid, permits, design development, etc.) there is an email sent out to the shops(HVAC, Plumbing, Arch., grounds/civil, etc.) with a link directing them to the files. They can grab what sections pertain to them and make comments on the drawings as needed.(Saves from having to print out complete sets per shop when all they really need is 3 or 4 sheets out of the set.) The best part about this is that the comments and revisions the shops have made are conveintly stored on Sharepoint, then once a meeting takes place to discuss, one person can take all the comments and print them out or have them electronically on file to send to the architect or whoever we are working for. Just a thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Organic Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 If you send people electronic versions of drawings to look at, many of them will most likely simply get annoyed at having to print it themselves (and then make the markups on the paper set). What you save in paper/ink costs will be offset by senior staff taking longer to markup drawings digitally. It is much quicker to use a pen and draw/annotate what you want rather than trying to do it on a screen via X software/reader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff H Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Design Review or Adobe with a tablet also works well but seen external stylus pads used with large screen work well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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